


Bad Business

by garrideb



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Abduction, Angst and Humor, Bickering, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Ice Cream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-07
Updated: 2011-08-07
Packaged: 2017-10-22 07:59:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garrideb/pseuds/garrideb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene checks up on an injured Sam after a routine interview goes sour. Sam isn’t in the mood for visitors, but Gene has a card up his sleeve.<br/>Written: 8/2008</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bad Business

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my LJ [here](http://garrideb.livejournal.com/3384.html#cutid1). Beta'd by the fabulous Walkerbaby.

Even in Sam’s horrendously ugly flat, the shower curtain stood out as an eyesore. It was the exact color of the mold patch Gene had discovered growing under his kitchen sink last spring; a color that couldn’t decide if it wanted to be green or yellow and in a tragic twist of fate somehow landed at a shade alarmingly near pink. At least his mold patch hadn’t sported a fruit and flower motif along the top. The shower curtain wasn’t so lucky.

He had half a mind to rip the damned thing off its hooks, take it outside, and set it on fire. He settled instead for pulling it to the side with a violent swing of his arm.

“What the hell?” Sam gasped. He was gripping the sides of the bathtub, as if ready to launch himself out of it and at his intruder, but upon recognizing his DCI, relaxed his grip and leaned back into the water. He glared at Gene.

"Just making sure you hadn’t drowned," Gene announced. “Not your brightest idea, taking a bath with that nasty bump on your head. Not your dumbest idea either, of course, but only because there’s a lot of competition in that category.”

Sam sighed and sank a little deeper into the water. “I’m fine. Thanks for your overwhelming concern.”

Gene glanced down. Even through the distortion of the water, he could see vicious red marks covering Sam’s body. They’d be spectacular bruises very soon, Gene was sure. His DI had taken a world-class beating today. “You’re not fine, but I’m glad you’re feeling yourself enough to lie about it. That’s really all I ask.”

Sam gave an angry snort. “All right. I’m bruised and I’m sore, no thanks to you, so I’d like to soak for a while in peace. Could you just leave? Now please?”

Turning on his heel, Gene left the tiny bathroom. He wasn’t about to give up the conversation though. Not when Sam had just implied that Gene had some blame in the bad business that had gone down that day.

They’d gotten an anonymous tip that a small grocery was going to be robbed three days from now, on Thursday. There’d been a spate of robberies in that part of town, and with little to go on he’d been glad for the tip. He and Sam had taken the Cortina down to the store, hoping to find some tie between the crims and their targets. At the very least, it was likely the robbers had been in to see what kind of resistance they might get.

After interviewing the store owner about his business and customers, and after grilling the few employees, Sam had suggested asking the old lady in the flat above the store if she’d seen anyone suspicious milling about. So Gene had trudged up the rickety stairs for yet another interview. Sam had stayed back to take a final look around, trying to get into the mindset of a robber.

He considered, for a moment, staying with Sam. It was sometimes amusing to watch his DI step into the shoes of a criminal, puzzling things out aloud in a muttered soliloquy. It was like watching Hamlet, had the prince decided revenge was old hat, moved to Manchester, and taken up the badge sometime after going nutters.

He would have stayed with Sam except they’d both been eager to get back to the station and start planning the bust. Plus, Gene had wanted to interview Mrs. Gladstone alone. Sam still didn’t quite have the right touch with old birds. He tended to make them nervous. He was too intense, maybe. Or perhaps old ladies were just adept at spotting someone certifiable.

Gene stalked into Sam’s kitchen and started loudly searching the cupboards. “What happened today was not my fault,” he stated forcefully. “We had no reason to think there was any danger. How were we to know that our little snitch doesn’t know his days of the week? Or that the burglars were so wound up, they thought it’d be a good idea to take you on before turning tail?”

“You might have considered something was wrong when you found me missing!” There was a splashing noise, and Gene pictured Sam trying to peer out of the bathroom without leaving the warmth of the tub. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing to worry your battered brain about,” Gene snapped. “You keep soaking.” He finally found a clean looking bowl and set it down on the counter. He pulled open both kitchen drawers at once, looking for a spoon. “I might have thought something was wrong if you didn’t routinely go off on your own without telling me. And it’s not as if I just hopped in me car and left. I circled the whole building looking for you first.”

“Don’t act as if you did me a favor!”

“Well, you could have tried shouting!”

“I was gagged!”

Gene tossed a spoon down next to the bowl and growled, “Some bastards got the drop on you, knocked you about, and tied you up. And, for a pack of brainless street thugs, they did an above average job of hiding you. None of this is my fault.”

An angry chuckle drifted out of the bathroom. “None of it? What about the fact that you drive like a jackrabbit on amphetamines even when you aren’t chasing a suspect or responding to a call? How do you justify going so fast a race car driver would piss himself?”

When Gene had first let himself into Sam’s flat - sheriff-of-the-town style - but before he’d announced himself to his grumpy, wet DI, he’d stashed a container in the freezer. Now he took it out and set it on the counter with a bit more force than strictly necessary. One did not insult a man’s driving. “I have never lost control of my car,” he said. “Speed does not equal recklessness.”

“It doesn’t matter if you were in control or not. God! Every bump in the road felt like a bomb going off. For fuck’s sake, didn’t you hear me kicking?”

“I heard something thumping around.” Gene opened the container and started scooping its contents into the bowl. “Thought it was the tire iron I keep back there.”

That chuckle was back. Gene wished Sam would put in some effort to sound a little less unhinged. “No, it wasn’t the tire iron. Do you know how I know that? Because every time we hit a bump, the tire iron was knocking into me. What you heard was me desperately kicking at the sides of the boot, hoping that just maybe you’d notice the sound above the bloody blasting of the radio!”

Gene closed his eyes, and with great restraint refrained from pointing out that Sam had been the last one to touch the radio’s volume knob. Gene hadn’t even changed the station even though he wasn’t terribly fond of the current chart-toppers.

He hadn’t cared what the radio was playing. He’d been too preoccupied with other things.

Like where his intrepid inspector had gone to, for one. He’d been soured by Sam’s disappearing act and was hoping to catch him further down the street. The first store robbed was only a couple blocks away and he thought that maybe Sam had found some new connection and rushed off to investigate it. Hell, it was worth a shot at least.

And yes, he’d heard a noise in the boot. The road was very bumpy though and he’d assumed it was the wheel brace-cum-emergency riot gear he kept back there rattling around. It hadn’t sounded like kicking so he hadn’t thought anything of it until the noise suddenly stopped for no discernible reason.

Throwing open the boot less than a minute later, Gene had seen why the kicking hadn’t sounded like kicking. Bent behind him and tied at the ankles, Sam’s legs hadn’t had much leverage.

Sam's coat had been torn at the sleeve, which was especially noticeable because of the way his arms were twisted and tied at his back. Blood was dribbling down his chin from a split lip. He was flushed and slick with sweat. Blinking against the light, Sam had given his Guv one hell of an evil look.

Gene had immediately tugged the gag out of Sam’s mouth. That might have been a mistake, he reflected, as he had then been subjected to the longest and most insensible rant he’d heard outside a nursing home.

Sam hated Gene. Sam hated Gene’s car. Sam hated 1973 and this whole prehistoric decade. This would never have happened in 2006. Sam missed his mobile and wasn’t going to wait thirty bloody years for them to become mainstream. Sam missed VCRs and DVDs and placing bids on vintage records on eBay at three in the morning when he couldn’t sleep. Sam missed cookie dough ice cream. Sam missed hearing endless debates on the ethics of cloning or the effects of global warming. They were infinitely better than the damn debates of this era. Sam hated seeing medical breakthroughs on the news that made him want to cry and pull his hair. Sam missed his Playstation. He’d even be happy with an Atari if he could just shoot something!

Gene had hoisted Sam out of the boot and helped him into the passenger seat. Wiping the blood off his lip with a shaking hand, Sam had sat like a puppet with its strings cut. Without a word, Gene had driven them to the hospital.

“The doctor said you were okay, for a man that’d been used like a piñata,” Gene said, mostly to himself. Unfortunately, the ugly flat also had thin walls.

“Yeah, I’m splendid! Thanks for ditching me in the waiting room, by the way.”

Gene slapped the lid back on the container. “Hell, Sam! I had Chris there as soon as the doctor was done with you! You’re insufferable when you’re sulky, and that goes double when you’ve actually got a reason to sulk, so I wasn’t going to stick around.”

“Then leave already.” There was a pause. “Wait, you said I had a reason to sulk. Did you just validate my feelings?”

Gene huffed. “I’m going to leave as soon as you’re out of the bath.”

“Then you might be here awhile. The water’s still hot.”

Gene picked up the bowl and walked to the bathroom. The door was only slightly open, but Gene could feel the heat from the steam wafting out. Gene pushed the door gently, revealing Sam with his eyes closed and his head tipped back against the edge of the tub.

“How long have you been in there, Tyler? You look like a prune.”

Sam didn’t open his eyes. “Would it kill you to have a little sympathy for the man who went through hell in your car today?”

“That’s Cartwright’s song and dance and you’ll be happy to know that she expressed bountiful sympathy for you already.”

“You told her?”

“I saw her at the station after I left you with the quacks. She wanted to come over and hold your hand but I let her know you were in a right mood and that it was best I came alone. The last thing I need is Flash Knickers sulking, too.”

“How considerate of you.”

Gene pushed the door open the rest of the way and walked in. Sam squinted up at him, and noticed the bowl. “You raided my kitchen?”

“No, I brought something to help shut you up.”

Sam raised an eyebrow and sat up, wincing slightly. “What is... is that ice cream?” He fumbled to save the bowl from the bath water when Gene abruptly dropped it into his hands.

When Sam had a proper grip, Gene gave him the spoon. “I can’t give you DVD or VCP or whatever fancy Hyde drugs you’re jonesing for, but there’s no harm in ice cream with cookie batter mixed in. Eat up.”

Irritatingly, instead of eating, Sam looked up at Gene with wonder. “You invented cookie dough ice cream for me?”

“No. You did, I imagine. Don’t expect anyone to pay you for the patent, though. The batter gets very slimy when mixed in, and it looks disgusting.”

Sam blinked his suspiciously wet eyes and dug in. He had always looked younger than his years, but sitting in the bath eating ice cream with enthusiasm... well, Gene supposed it was a blessing that it was he, and not the criminal underground of Manchester that was seeing his DI like this. No one would take the police force seriously again.

“It feels like forever since I’ve had this. It’s my favorite flavor... back in Hyde.” Sam managed between large mouthfuls. “Of course it’s a bit different, but this is fantastic too.”

“Yeah, well don’t get used to this kind of treatment. I only do this for officers who get locked in my boot by people other than me, and I don’t want anything like today happening again. In fact, first thing tomorrow we are going to have a discussion on how they got the drop on you and how to prevent it in the future. Then you will thank Annie for providing the batter for your twisted idea of a dessert.”

Sam took another bite and moaned happily. Gene shook his head at the childlike bliss on Sam’s face. Definitely better if the scum of Manchester never saw him like this.

“Right,” Gene said. “That’s my cue to leave you alone.”

“Guv,” Sam called as Gene was leaving. “I know that what went down... you couldn’t have known.”

“All the same...” Gene shrugged. “Enjoy your ice cream. Try not to drown. Oh, and get a new shower curtain.”

Sam grinned. “Good night, Gene.”


End file.
